Russian Meteor's Origin Remains Mysterious 2 Years Later

Below:

Next story in Space

Two years after an asteroid exploded over Russia and injured more
than 1,200 people, the origin of the space rock still puzzles
scientists.

The 66-foot-wide (20 meters) asteroid
broke up over the city of Chelyabinsk, Russia, on Feb. 15, 2013,
shattering windows across the area and sending many people to the
hospital with lacerations from the flying glass.

Originally, astronomers thought that the Chelyabinsk meteor came
from a 1.24-mile-wide (2 kilometers) near-Earth asteroid called
1999 NC43. But a closer look at the asteroid's orbit and likely
mineral composition, gained from spectroscopy, suggests few
similarities between it and the Russian meteor. [ Meteor
Streaks Over Russia, Explodes (Photos) ]

"These two bodies shared similar orbits around the sun, and
initial studies suggested even similar compositions," lead study
author Vishnu Reddy, a scientist with the nonprofit Planetary
Science Institute in Tucson, Arizona, said in a statement.

However, "the composition of [the] Chelyabinsk meteorite that was
recovered after the event is similar to a common type of
meteorite called LL chondrites," he added. "The near-Earth
asteroid has a composition that is distinctly different from
this."

More generally, Reddy and his colleagues' work showed that it is
difficult to make predictions about what particular asteroid
could have shed pieces that slammed into Earth. Because most
asteroids are so small and their orbits are "chaotic," it's hard
to make a firm link, the authors said.

The
Russian meteor explosion has generated a great deal of
interest in the search for potentially hazardous asteroids,
sparking the creation of a new asteroid warning center at the
European Space Agency, among other initiatives.

In a statement this week, the B612 Foundation, a nonprofit
organization that seeks to reduce the threat from asteroids,
urged agencies worldwide to step up their search for dangerous
space rocks. The group plans to add to that effort with the
asteroid-hunting Sentinel Space Telescope, which B612 hopes to
launch in 2018.

"The fact of the matter is that asteroid impacts can be prevented
using technology we can employ right now," B612 co-founder Ed Lu,
a former space shuttle astronaut, said in a statement.

"And unlike other potentially global-scale catastrophic events,
the solution is nearly purely a technical one, and with a
relatively small and known cost," Lu added. "So as my friend,
former Apollo 9 astronaut and co-founder of the B612 Foundation
Rusty Schweickart says, 'Let’s get on with it.'"